TANZANIA (eTN) - Neighboring the biggest national park in Tanzania -
Ruaha National Park in the southern area of the country - there is a
successful local community wildlife conservation program known as
MBOMIPA, which is made up of 19 village communities. MBOMIPA is an
acronym from the Swahili name, Matumizi Bora ya Malihai Idodi na Pawaga,
which translated in official documents means “Sustainable Use of
Wildlife Resources in Idodi and Pawaga.”
Covering an area of 777 kilometers, the MBOMIPA program runs a
tourist hunting project under the coordination of the Wildlife
Management Areas (WMA) program, designed and managed by the Wildlife
Division under Tanzania’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism with
substantial support from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
MBOMIPA is Tanzania’s leading community wildlife management
association whose mission is to manage an effective and sustainable
wildlife management system under the community authority and is
responsible for the Pawaga-Idodi locality Wildlife Management Area.
Through such an initiative, MBOMIPA is committed to promote
sustainable management of all natural and cultural resources as a means
of enhancing local economic development and contributing to the
reduction of poverty in the villages which it operates.
Tourists to Ruaha National Park get a chance to carry out
photographic safaris outside the park through visits to villages under
MBOMIPA.
They get involved to various cultures and ways of life which local
communities practice, thereby contributing to poverty reduction and
raising incomes of those communities.
Hotel and accommodation investments are also being attracted outside the park in villages under the MBOMIPA program management.
According to the UNDP, community-based natural resource management is
key to a long-term solution to elephant poaching and illegal wildlife
trade, as well as poverty reduction strategies.
Community-based initiatives must be given the support they deserve to
generate incomes for rural people and help diversify incomes through
tourism and other service sectors, UNDP economists said.
The UNDP and Global Environment Facility conservation project known
as SPANEST (Strengthening the Protected Area Network in Southern
Tanzania) has been established, focusing on conserving the wildlife and
landscape of Tanzania’s southern circuit, including Ruaha, Kitulo,
Mpanga-Kipengere, and the protected areas of Mount Rungwe.
Through UNDP support, the SPANEST project undertook a census that
showed a notable decline in elephant populations in the Ruaha-Rungwa
ecosystem, falling from 31,625 elephants in 2009 to just 20,090 in 2013.
UNDP support enabled purchase of land graders and support to Ruaha
Park management on improvement of roads within the wildlife protected
area. This access had opened the area for enhanced tourism opportunities
and better security, as well as facilitating regular patrols for
anti-poaching. Other work has been to provide training to park rangers
in the area of Walking Safari as well as various communication devices
for the park rangers.
UNDP is committed to supporting initiatives against wildlife trade by
helping in the governance, rule of law, poverty eradication, and
environment protection support to the government of Tanzania.
The social and economic benefits of conservation of wildlife in
Tanzania’s wildlife parks and reserves should be going to local
communities and the nation, UNDP has stated.
Community-based tourism, jobs in wildlife and park management, and
government revenue-sharing from tourism can all help reduce poverty and
inequality, including for women, youth, and marginalized groups, the UN
agency officials said.
UNDP already works closely with partners in a number of countries to
design and implement public, private, and community-level partnerships
which co-manage wildlife resources.
Community-based initiatives must be given the support they need to
deliver incomes to rural people through tourism and other sectors. If
local communities are kept out of the equation, however, they may turn a
blind eye to poaching, or, driven by poverty, local people may be
recruited into poaching gangs and organized crime syndicates on
wildlife.
Ruaha National Park is such an exciting tourist attraction site that
one could not afford to miss it. It is an odyssey of Africa and a jewel
of Tanzania’s southern highlands.
Ruaha is the wildest park in Tanzania with its wide area remaining
untouched by human hands, and wild animals which have been given natural
rights to occupy this park. The wildlife is so abundant in Ruaha and
the scenery is spectacular.
Ruaha is such an exciting attraction, not only to Tanzanian
residents, but to foreign visitors whose experience in Africa is an
essential part of their lives in the developed world.
Ruaha National Park has been combined with the Usangu Game Reserve,
increasing its size by over 22,000 square kilometers, making it the
largest national park in Africa.
Boastful of big herds of elephants, and being the largest population
of any East African wildlife sanctuary, Ruaha National Park protects a
vast tract of the rugged semi-arid bush country that characterizes
Tanzania’s savannah. Its lifeblood is the Great Ruaha River which
courses along the eastern boundary of the park.
A fine network of game-viewing roads follow the Great Ruaha and its
seasonal tributaries, where, during the dry season, impala, waterbuck,
and other antelopes risk their lives for a sip of life-sustaining water.
The risk is considerable with prides of 20 plus lions lording over the
savannah, the cheetahs that stalk the open grassland, and the leopards
that lurk in tangled riverside thickets.
Ruaha is also home to over 450 bird species. The Usangu Game Reserve
includes the Ihefu Wetland and the natural water reservoir for the Great
Ruaha River.
Watching a charging elephant bull, seeing mating lions, or a herd of
browsing zebras are all exciting experiences in Ruaha National Park,
which is counted as the most remote wildlife sanctuary in East Africa.
Made up of the Great Ruaha River, the park boasts a great wildlife
concentration in Tanzania where the wildest creatures may be found in
abundance. Occupied with deep pools and swirling waters of the river,
the park offers the best wildlife excursion in Southern Tanzania’s
tourist circuit, after the Serengeti in northern Tanzania.
The Ruaha River is the most attractive natural feature in the park.
It supports life to higher numbers of hippos and crocodiles which all
may be encountered during a boat riding safari. Terrestrial animals can
easily been seen quenching their thirst on the river banks, while others
just go to the river to wallow and play on its banks.
Ruaha can be reached easily by air and road from Mbeya and Iringa. It
takes up between eight and ten hours to drive from Dar es Salaam to the
park.
Even more adventurous are the trekking safaris which last for several
days. A small group of trekkers start from tented camps with guides and
game scouts. In the evening, they set up their tents at a scenic spot
and move on the following morning. Trekking is actually the best way to
experience the heartbeat of the Ruaha Park.
Unlike the northern parks of Tanzania, mass tourism is not observed
in Ruaha, and ecologically-friendly camps and lodges correlating to
nature are the prominent visitors’ accommodation facilities there.
With the theme Cultivating Sustainable and Peaceful Communities and
Nations through Tourism, Culture and Sports, the IIPT World Symposium
that is to be held at Emperors Palace, Johannesburg, South Africa, is
aimed at bringing together key personalities in tourism to discuss
pertinent issues arising from communities, and addresses benefits to
local communities through tourism, among other issues.
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